Old Man

“…and we liked it!”  was Dana Carvey’s refrain on SNL, eons ago, as the grumpy old man accusing today’s youth of being soft, citing his own generation’s implausibly difficult circumstances.  Ironically, Carvey himself must be getting on in years but hasn’t been visibly active on screen these days, at least so far as I can see.

I hit the big 5-0 back in January.   Naturally that has me thinking.  Here are some of those thoughts.

Middle Aged?  For some reason I took as a given that life expectancy was a nice, round 100.   And many people do live that long these days, but so far as I know current life expectancy in the First World remains around 75.   So 50 isn’t middle aged, it’s 67% of the way through.  Oops.

Reincarnation.   PROG Magazine features a column by none other than famous keyboardist Rick Wakeman, whose commentary is invariably humorous and witty, but in this case he went on about reincarnation.  I find the whole premise of reincarnation so thoroughly implausible and ridiculous as to be not worth discussing even in theory.  There are billions of people alive today, far more than have ever died.   Reincarnation as a human is a non-starter.  For his part, he was discussing animals, which in addition to being implausible is also silly.  Funny how no animals, even dolphins, have made any effort to communicate with us.   If Uncle Ted was reborn as an animal, wouldn’t he tap, in morse code, somehow?    Really a total waste of time for anyone to consider.

Stem Cells.   I had a chiropractor in my office and we discussed this.   According to him, nerve damage from even minor accidents is permanent.  After puberty, these types of cells do not regrow.  I asked him if stem cells could fix that, and he said that in principle they could, but the technology to allow them to do so is decades away. 

Then I asked him about immortality, and he gave me the “good news”/”bad news”.  The good news is that in theory, stem cells could allow us to replace aging tissue and ensure, effectively, eternal youth.  The bad news is that the state of stem cell technology as of 2019 is such that even if it ever did reach that point, anyone alive today, and certainly him and I, would be long dead by that time.  Sigh…

Falling Apart.   My metabolism has gone down substantially.   My weight has gone up.  I used to be able to run on the treadmill at 7 mph.  Now I’m lucky to be able to do a brisk walk at 4.5 mph, or briefly run for 5-10 minutes at 6 mph.  As for strength, though, I’m lifting as much as I ever was at 25.

My hair still seems to be hanging in there, though some of it (less than 25%) is grey.   I’m feeling more aches and pains than ever before, not sure whether it’s wear and tear, arthritis, or – as the chiropractor suggested – auto accident injuries manifesting themselves years after the accidents occurred.  Unfortunately ObamaCare effectively pushed me out of the health insurance market:  $300 a month with an $8000 deductible, such a bad deal that the adjusters told me not to bother with it.  Whatever health care I do get is paid out of pocket as I go.  

Fortunately in other departments I’m still doing OK.   President John Tyler, #10, who served from 1841-45, remarkably has living two living grandsons today [https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/heir-raising-experience/].   I’ve long since given up hope on having children – and even if I somehow fathered any today, I would be 70 when they were in college.   My interest at this point is more the obvious part of the childbearing procedure from the male perspective and no real expectation of producing children. 

On the other hand, the Romans were big on adoption, refusing to rely on the randomness of childbirth AND having children who weren’t screwups; they interviewed decent kids of other parents and adopted the ones they felt were worthy.  Not a bad idea….

Mind Reading.  Not sure if this belongs here, but it's a minor power I seem to have picked up in the last year or so.  I've noticed when watching TV or a movie I've never seen before, I'm able to predict what the characters will say, sometimes verbatim.  And no, we're not talking about common catchphrases.  I picked one from "Two Mules For Sister Sara" (remarkable western with Clint Eastwood and Shirley MacLaine) literally word for word.  I suppose there's a finite array of vocabulary and maybe a critical mass of movies which makes this possible, who knows.  Not that I'm complaining.